A Weasley, By Any Other Name
by nataliadarimini
Summary: Malfoy has decided to cut his losses and join Dumbledore, despite his continued and vehement dislike of all things Potter. Helping the side of the light, though, is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. Luckily, a Weasley is in the same boat.


Author's Notes:  
  
So, er, I've not been working on my WIP as I ought to have been. I'm sorry. This morning I got a review in which there was a threat of castration if I didn't hurry it up a bit. So, I'm offering up this Percy story from the recent Percy Ficathon. It is Percy/Draco, Draco pov, pg-13 slash. If this is not your cup of tea, I suggest you leave and read a songfic or something.  
  
Disclaimer:  
  
Harry Potter, and the universe in which he resides, is owned by J. K. Rowling and her publishers. No money is being made by this little diversion and no disrespect is intended to the author.  
  
A Weasley, by Any Other Name  
  
Draco sighed; this wasn't going well. Not that there had ever been any hope that it would.  
  
"Of course we applaud your decision and we are glad to have you with us, dear boy," said Headmaster Dumbledore, not unkindly, "But you'll understand that we simply cannot afford you an active roll in the order." The old man leaned forward over his desk and steepled his fingers. He was the absolute picture of fatherly concern as he crushed the hopes of his former pupil. "It certainly is not that I don't trust you, because I do. I would love to have you working by my side. I well remember your skill with a hex. But I am not the only one that I must think about. There are others, too, and they have to have one hundred percent confidence as well or they will not be able to work at their best. It is simply too early, as of yet. Do you understand?"  
  
Draco Malfoy wore his disappointment gracefully. "Yes, Headmaster, of course I understand. I am more than happy to wait for my chance to prove myself, however far away that may be. And I'm sure that I'll find plenty to do here to help out."  
  
The Headmaster looked pleased and said, "That's the spirit. I've talked to Madam Pomfrey and she has expressed an interest in your assistance. You can go see her later this afternoon. And Percy, here, has been good enough to offer to show you around and get you settled. Off you go, then, and I'll see you gentlemen when I get back." He rose from the desk and came around the side of it to shake Draco's hand, as though he were an equal rather than a prodigal son. The weasel, too, rose and came to his side and Draco wondered if he was expected to shake his hand, as well. He hoped not. Being confined with countless weasels would be hard enough without being manhandled by them.  
  
The danger of contamination seemed to pass, however, as the Headmaster shooed them from the room. The weasel barely even looked at him until they were both out in the hall and even then it was nothing but a glance before asking him whether he wanted to see Pomfrey first or his room.  
  
"My room, I should think. Thank you," Draco said, the last a too obvious afterthought. He would have to work on that if he wanted to keep from being mauled by one or another of the Gryffindors staying at the house. The weasel wordlessly led him down the hall and Draco found himself jogging a little bit to keep up.  
  
"House" was really not quite adequate for the place. It was, in Draco's opinion, reasonably large for a dwelling. Perhaps not as large as Malfoy Manor, but that was only to be expected. At least it had several wings to it so that he wouldn't have to be cramped in with a bunch of other people. He imagined that it was probably quite a step up from wherever it was that the weasels kept themselves before.  
  
Since Hogwarts had been compromised and Kreacher had led the Death Eaters to 12 Grimmauld Place, Draco had wondered where Dumbledore's group had been hiding itself. He still didn't quite know where, as he had been temporarily blinded for transport here. That was his first clue that he wasn't going to be welcomed to the Order. The second was the fact that someone had taken advantage of his blindness to come behind him and hiss invective in his ear. If the speaker was to be believed, he would have his balls cut off with a rusty knife and his throat would be slit from ear to ear if he so much as placed one toe out of line.  
  
Draco smirked in remembering. Potter's weasel sidekick had never been very imaginative in his threats.  
  
This weasel, the one who had, it would seem, volunteered himself for the job of showing Draco everything that he needed to know about this place, was coming to a stop outside of a rough, ugly door and waiting. Draco assumed that he was supposed to open the door and went through.  
  
The room was very small, which was not unexpected, and had thick bars over the shuttered window, which was. Presumably the bars were to prevent him from seeing the outdoors and figuring out where he was, or perhaps even to prevent his escape. Draco had no intention of trying to escape, however. He had meant it when he'd come to Dumbledore.  
  
The weasel was sitting on his bed, which made Draco again leery of bacterial contamination, and was looking up at him with an odd expression on his face. Draco took the one chair in the room and crossed his legs, returning the look. He was not about to be disconcerted by one of the orange-headed hoard.  
  
"May I help you with your luggage?" The question was surprisingly conversational, given that Draco supposed that there wasn't one man, woman or child in this house who didn't hate him.  
  
"You may. Thank you." This time the pleasantry was much less forced and Draco congratulated himself.  
  
Draco had voluntarily allowed the others to dampen his magic, so that even a simple "lumos" made him feel slightly faint. The somewhat complicated procedure involved in un-shrinking luggage would be utterly beyond him. He set his trunk on the floor in front of the chair where it could be a footrest and put his owl's cage on the small table next to the chair. It didn't really need to be enlarged, he didn't have an owl anymore, but it was likely to get broken being carried about in his pocket all of the time.  
  
The weasel brought his belongings to their proper size and complimented him on the beauty of the cage. Draco took pity on him, inasmuch as he'd probably never seen one up close that hadn't been bought at the second-hand shop, and said, "Yes, isn't it nice?" The weasel made noises about his own owl, to which Draco didn't pay much attention, and then began outlining what Draco could expect while staying with the order.  
  
"Mum's more or less in charge of the kitchens and she has kittens if anyone is late, probably because she's afraid that if someone isn't back on time they won't be back at all. Auror Moody is in command whenever Professor Dumbledore isn't here and his word is pretty much law, but Ms. Vance takes care of the actual day-to-day workings. You don't have to worry about going to meetings unless told otherwise." Draco thought that this was a very tactful way of telling him that he wasn't trusted with hearing any plans and would do best to keep himself to himself when there was any true Order business in the offing. Then the weasel said, "I'll make you up a map so that you don't get lost trying to find the infirmary or the dining room. And of course, if you need anything you can just ask me."  
  
"What, exactly, am I supposed to be doing while I'm here? Other than staying away from meetings and keeping out of Potter's sight." Draco didn't mean to let his bitterness show. In fact, he preferred to think of it as Depressed Resignation, but he had to admit that he sounded bitter, even to his own ears. The weasel's face went unattractively pink and he suggested that Draco amuse himself in the library or spend his time helping Madam Pomfrey because he really didn't see what else Draco could do. He said it with the definite implication that what he meant was there wasn't anything else Draco could be trusted with. In fact, continued the weasel pompously, Draco ought to look into helping in the kitchen because so much of Madam Pomfrey's work was of a delicate nature (dangerous to leave in Malfoy hands) and the house elves were understaffed.  
  
It occurred to Draco at this point that he was rapidly losing his resolve to be polite to his new... protectors, for lack of a better word. He pondered, momentarily, the pros and cons of just letting go and cursing the nose off of the weasel's face. The fact that the effort might just drop him into a coma convinced him to give it another try.  
  
"Weasley, I'm sorry to be snappish. It has been a trying day (week, month, life) and I'm letting fatigue get the better of me. I'm glad to be here, doing whatever I can to help." There, that sounded sincere. And the scowl was gone from the weasel's face, so he must have pulled it off. "Would you take me to Madam Pomfrey?"  
  
The weasel nodded and got up, leaving the room again with his absurdly purposeful, long-legged pace that made Draco feel short when he knew perfectly well that he wasn't.  
  
That night Draco lay in his too-hard bed and had several highly enjoyable fantasies in which he killed the members of the Order in sundry inventive and messy fashions. The conversation at the evening meal had been little more than an almost undisguised accusation of espionage on Draco's part and incompetence on the part of the absent headmaster for letting him in. There had been many, many people at the table that he had never met, but they seemed to be perfectly familiar with him, his lineage and his presumed allegiance and plans to formulate an Evil Plot.  
  
Potter had reigned over the table like some petty baron, his subjects fawning and fighting for praise. Only the weasel that Draco had come to think of as his weasel was silent. The others at the table seemed to ignore him totally.  
  
After supper Draco had been cornered by the twin weasels, who apparently wanted to put the fear of God into him. Not realizing, presumably, that they were far from the first to tell him that day that he wasn't trusted. The encounter compared favorably, thought, with the one he had with Moody, which he simply refused to think about.  
  
And then there was Emmaline Vance. She'd been with the order since the beginning and apparently thought that no one under the age of thirty was trustworthy. Which, coincidentally, was the inverse of Draco's own philosophy. She'd practically ripped him a new one when he'd made a suggestion about the way she was interrogating him. Granted, it might have been coached in a more friendly way, but she was no friend of his so he didn't see why that was necessary.  
  
Draco didn't blame any of them. Well, actually, he did, but he understood where they were coming from. He didn't want to be there any more than they wanted him there. It was just that he had been in the right place at the right time to see the mudblood Granger right after the last incident with Walden and the weariness just got the better of him. There was only so long that one could stand being with the Death Eaters before one became acutely aware of one's expendability. Draco didn't want to be expendable.  
  
The Side of the Light didn't seem to be all that different, though. Maybe it was, if you were trusted. They all seemed to like and care about each other. Well, mostly. And maybe Draco could become a part of that if he was patient. Not that he particularly wanted to become attached to these people, they seemed utter prats one and all, but it would be nice to be wanted again, if that was possible.  
  
His opportunities to make himself useful, however, appeared to be limited. His trump card was the information he could share about the Death Eaters, but Emmaline Vance had told him in no uncertain terms that they had other, more reliable sources and his information could wait until Dumbledore got back from wherever it was that he'd got to. When the man had said goodbye, Draco had assumed that he'd be gone for a few hours at most, but he hadn't returned by nightfall.  
  
Several weeks later, Draco was getting into the stride of things. He was still openly reviled by Potter and his inner clique, but it turned out that the Order didn't always follow Potter's lead. The girl with the different- coloured hair was often quite cordial to him and Mrs. Weasley had stopped looking at him like he had killed her pet krup.  
  
His working the infirmary was confined to rolling bandages and what little could be done without fear of his sabotaging things, but it was pleasantly mindless and he could spend the evenings in the library. Which was a pitiful place, without even a fireplace, but had enough books to promise to keep him occupied for a good long while. Also in the library was the weasel. His weasel, whom he had taken to calling Weasley as a gesture of goodwill. The other weasels remained nothing but a large ginger blob on his psyche, as he refused to get to know any of them beyond a nod (returned less than fifty percent of the time) as they passed in the halls.  
  
It hadn't taken long to figure out that his weasel didn't go out on missions like the others. Even the girl weasel left occasionally, and she couldn't be more than twenty and she was, well, a girl, so Draco couldn't figure out why his weasel had to stay put all the time.  
  
He was glad of it, though, because being alone all of the time was unpleasant. Weasley was quiet and had come to be almost a comfort the way he was always hanging about reading or writing or helping tidy. He'd been telling the truth: there really weren't enough house elves for a place this size and he seemed to take it upon himself to help them out. Occasionally Draco would get the feeling like he ought to help, too, but as much as he was willing to humble himself to come here, house elf work was something he was just not prepared to do. Though he had helped in the kitchen a couple of times, but that was different because he was helping Weasley's mother, not the house elves.  
  
Today he was finally done sorting the ointments in the Infirmary and had been let go early. Though, this may have had something to do with the fact that several people were being brought in for treatment. He was usually discouraged from hanging about when there were patients. He headed to the library.  
  
In the beginning he had taken books from the library to his room to read them, but as he found out that there was almost never anyone in the library he began to stay there to read, since it was so much more comfortable there. Draco had finished most of the classics that he'd always meant to read but hadn't ever before, as well as several books of technique that would come in handy if he got his magical strength back before he forgot everything, though that seemed a bit unlikely at the moment. Dumbledore still hadn't returned and he wasn't going to get his magic back until he did. Draco wasn't sure whether he ought to start worrying that Potter had kidnapped the old man and hidden him in a closet to spite him.  
  
Weasley was there when he arrived, but he didn't mind. He wasn't hostile to Draco, hadn't ever been really, beyond being a trifle snippy in the beginning. Draco took up the book that he'd left on the low table by his favorite chair and sat down. Today's reading was by P.G. Wodehouse, utterly mindless fluff to follow his Kafka from the beginning of the week.  
  
Weasley didn't look up when he came in, but he did bless him when he sneezed and that was enough companionship to make Draco feel not quite so alone in this house full of strangers.  
  
After supper, the werewolf came to him and asked him to help Granger with some research. Draco almost tried to beg off, but decided that cooperation was what would raise him from his second-class citizenship. When he went to the library to find her, he was surprised to see Weasley, another of the weasels-an older one- and the werewolf, all sitting around a table that appeared to have been transfigured from a volume of poetry, if the lines in iambic-pentameter running up and down the legs were any clue.  
  
He noticed that his favorite chair was pulled up into the circle but still empty and wondered if Weasley had anything to do with that. He murmured a hello and took the seat, listening to the other weasel make his excuses to the werewolf and leave. His former professor was more pitifully tattered than ever, but Draco couldn't work up the effort to feel superior, as his own robes were beginning to fall into disrepair now that he couldn't do much magic for himself. He could have gone to someone for assistance, but the all too likely chance that they would just tell him to go screw himself made the option unappealing indeed.  
  
"Well," said Granger brightly, carefully not looking in his direction, "We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'd best begin. What we're trying to do here is find every reference that we can to a potion called les sacres yeux. Now, I've done some preliminary research because the name seemed a trifle off to me and I found out that my instincts were right. In the French language the adjective goes after the noun, unlike in English where we put it before."  
  
Draco interrupted, "But sometimes they do put it before and in that case it is meant to indicate that the adjective is not the truth, but rather the speaker's opinion. It is usually used with adjectives like age, beauty, size and the like." The others stared at him for a moment and Granger's mouth dropped open a little bit. Draco did his best not to smirk.  
  
"Er, yes. That's exactly what I discovered. In this case whoever named the potion wanted to make sure that we knew that "the sacred eyes" were only sacred in his opinion. I think that this might be important. Now, I've already compiled several books. There are many of the obvious potions texts, but this isn't a common potion, so I don't have a lot of hope that the usual texts will help us. I also," and here she looked meaningfully at Draco, "have a few volumes in French. I'd thought to do a translation spell, but if Malfoy here is an expert on the French language, perhaps he would be so good as to help us."  
  
She looked at him as though she expected him to admit that he couldn't read it or that he felt that a translation spell might be for the best, just in case. Draco just nodded and said, "Of course." It was a petty victory, but it made him feel much better about being trapped in a room with the others. Weasley was smiling at him and Draco smiled back. He had to fight back an impulse to begin humming La Marseillaise.  
  
"Here you go, then, Malfoy." Granger handed him five books of varying sizes with French titles. Some of them looked old enough to crumble into a thousand pieces if he set them down too vigorously. He laid them in his lap. "And for you, Professor. And you, Percy." She handed several books to the werewolf and to Weasley, who stopped smiling when he felt the weight of the stack.  
  
"When do you need us to be done with these?" This is the first time that Draco has heard Weasley speak since he arrived in the library and, not counting a quiet "bless you," the first time he's heard him speak in days. Granger seems equally surprised by Weasley's question and she doesn't answer for a moment.  
  
"Oh, well, we aren't in any real hurry for this. Any time in the next few days will be fine. Professor, I know that you have a lot of other things to do so you needn't push yourself over this." Granger didn't appear to recognize her implicit message that her other two helpers were layabouts with nothing better to do. Not that Draco did have anything better to do; his work in the infirmary was certainly not pressing.  
  
After this the meeting appeared to be over and Granger and the werewolf left, but Draco decided to stay and begin the first book, which had the uninspiring title of Un grand Lexique des Choses qui Sont Decouvert par le Sorcier Louis De Navarre avec le Sel de Mer, which meant, roughly, "things discovered with sea salt by Louis of Navarre."  
  
Weasley seemed to be staying as well, and, further, he seemed disinclined to move from his seat across from Draco. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Draco began to read, stumbling occasionally over phrases that contained obscure terms that he'd never had the opportunity to learn. On the whole, however, he made good progress and was nearly half done by the time that Weasley interrupted him a couple of hours later.  
  
"You're making good headway on that book," he said. Draco was unsure what the proper response to such an inane remark was, so he simply said, "Yes, it's going well enough." Weasley looked pleased with the interchange, so Draco supposed that he'd answered correctly. He looked over and noted that the other man's book was also close to the end.  
  
Weasley followed his eyes and said, "Well, yes, but this is in English. I expected that you might want me to do a translation charm for you as some point. Potions tests can be esoteric stuff." Draco nodded.  
  
"It is a bit thick in places, but not to the point of being unreadable. " Draco began reading again, but Weasley wasn't to be put off.  
  
"I didn't know you knew French." Draco looked over and tried to indicate with his eyebrows that he didn't want to talk anymore. The language of eyebrows, however, is nebulous at best and Weasley continued. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected it to be written on your forehead, but still, it is good to be reminded."  
  
"Reminded of what?" Draco asked. As much as he wanted to be left alone, he couldn't bear to leave a conversation on a non sequitor like that.  
  
"That we don't know you at all." Percy looked back down at his book, but Draco was not about to let that slide.  
  
"What do you mean by that? I have been nothing but straight forward with all of you since I got here. I have done my best to help in the limited capacity in which I have been allowed. I don't appreciate the way that you all continually act as though I have You-Know-Who in my trouser pocket and am just waiting for the chance to let him loose." Draco clutched the book tight as he said this and the spine crackled ominously. Weasley looked at him for a moment as though he'd grown an extra head and it was telling off- colour jokes.  
  
"That is not what I meant at all. I was thinking, in fact, about the way that they think that they know you and what you're like but they don't know at all. You may help puppies and little old ladies in your spare time for all we know and you shouldn't be judged by the way that you acted when you were a child," Weasley said, looking tired. Draco leaned back in his chair and brushed crumbs of disintegrating pages from his clothes while trying to think this new information through.  
  
"So," he said slowly, "what you're telling me is this: because I can understand French I have revealed...unplumbed depths and should accordingly be given the benefit of the doubt? I hate puppies, by the way."  
  
"Yes... no... I don't know! I just mean that we should get to know you better." Weasley looked like he thoroughly regretted the whole conversation, which was Draco's intention. "And I find it hard to believe that anyone could hate puppies."  
  
"Really." Draco looked back at his book, confident that the interchange was at an end.  
  
"Yes, really." Weasley was proving to be an obstinate sod. Draco looked up again and caught his eyes.  
  
"How would you suggest we go about that, then? Maybe we could go around the table at breakfast tomorrow and share? I could talk about my mother," Draco said facetiously.  
  
"What about your mother?"  
  
"What do you mean 'what about my mother?' Nothing about my mother. It was a for instance and you don't seem to be getting the gist of what I'm trying to say."  
  
"No, no I get it," Weasley said, "I just think that maybe...we could talk. You know. And then, well, I'd know. Even if they didn't." He looked very young and slightly embarrassed and Draco knew he shouldn't encourage him.  
  
"All right."  
  
"What happened to Baldur, then?" Weasley had started with questions about his owl, which had proven to be a topic that Draco could spend some time on. This seemed to be something that they had in common. They both were quite fond of their owls. Or rather, Weasley was and Draco had been.  
  
"He flew in front of a curse that was supposed to get me. Damned stupid bird. Not a brain in its head. Macnair was mad at me over something or other, and my father had just fallen out of favor with the Dark Lord again, so I was no longer protected by his position. Macnair tried to curse me, but Baldur flew in front of me and I was able to apparate. Stupid bird." Baldur was really quite an intelligent bird. He had been named for the Norse god of gentleness, which was a rare thing indeed in Norse gods, unfortunately also a god whose best known story was that of his death. Perhaps he ought to have named him after Thor, who only had to deal with infidelity.  
  
"My mother was always fond of that particular spell. On my birthday she would sometimes wake me up with a 'Millefiori' so that my bed would suddenly be buried under hundreds of flowers and she'd have to help me dig myself out. It was lovely. All that stopped when I went to Hogwarts, though. That year turned out to be the cutoff for almost everything nice, really."  
  
It was days and days later, but they still talked like this after reading ever night. They'd gotten new books from Granger twice and still found only passing reference to the potion. Draco had asked her why the potion was of importance, but her hemming and hawing made him tell her that it wasn't important. If she didn't think it was safe to tell him he wasn't going to press her.  
  
He was learning a lot about Weasley, too. Weasley, who was trying to get Draco to call him Percy. That, however, was Not Going to Happen.  
  
"Mum never did anything like that for my birthday. Ginny's, yes, mine, never. Though she did like to make me a cake with a little stick-figure scene of me being carried about on my brothers' shoulders. I always liked that. Though occasionally they would drop me, but that was probably only because there isn't a lot of room to maneuver on a cake." Percy, it seemed, was in not much better of a position here than Draco. He didn't go on missions. He didn't attend meetings. He sat about and did house work and read like Draco, though he did have full access to his magic.  
  
It seemed to stem from a falling out that Weasley had with the others around Draco's fifth year. He'd patched things up with everyone, but still...like Dumbledore had said, everyone needed to be a hundred percent sure. Apparently, they weren't. And five years was a long time for them to not be sure.  
  
"You, Weasley, have a one-track mind. I'm not going to tell you why I left, so you can stop asking me." Draco was sprawled out over the sofa with a book on his chest. Weasley was in Draco's favorite chair, not even pretending to research.  
  
"Fine, so tell me something else." Weasley was determined to know everything.  
  
"Okay. Um, when I was trying to get that wretched Vance cow-"  
  
"You shouldn't call her that."  
  
"Goat, then? Anyway, I tried to tell her my deep, dark, death eating secrets, but she didn't want to listen. She said I had to wait for the Headmaster, who it seems has abandoned me to you lot like a wee babe to a pack of hippogryphs. Anyway, some time before I left the Death Eaters, seems like years ago now, maybe it was three or four months back, I heard Lestrange say that they had a man in the Department of Centaur Relations. Well, I wasn't supposed to be listening. I was supposed to be helping Mother with the preparations for some fancy dinner or other, so I couldn't give them any of my sterling advice. But the truth is that the offices for centaur relations is the single worst place for a spy in the entire history of spy-dom. The place has all of three people in it and their job is to sit around and plan what the ministry will do if centaurs ever get over themselves enough to want to deal with wizards. So, the sum of the situation is that the spy, if he hasn't already been down-sized for redundancy, will get to talk to the bigwigs at the Christmas party and maybe the Minister's birthday party. He's almost useless for information." Draco rolled over onto his side to look at Weasley. "But that, Weasley, is the bunch of idiots with whom I was supposed to smile and nod. Pitiful."  
  
"Yes," laughed Weasley, "Much better system over here, where the mystique is preserved by not letting us know anything."  
  
"Yes," said Draco, "That is the moral of this particular story."  
  
"Where do you think the Headmaster is?" Weasley often gave off the impression of being intelligent to people who didn't know him, but that was only because they didn't hear him say things like this.  
  
"How the bloody hell should I know? I don't get told anything around this place. Wait, no, that's not true. It was only this morning that Pomfrey told me that it looks to be a hard winter. Compared to what information I've been getting, that's practically a state secret." Draco looked vexedly at the orange-headed twit with whom he was sharing the couch. Honestly, he was worried about Dumbledore as well. The man had been gone for ages. And perhaps he was supposed to be gone this long, but Draco didn't think so. Not that he was in any position to know.  
  
It was a week since the last time that Draco had gotten new books from Granger. He had taken to sitting next to Weasley at meals, though not all meals because he didn't want the others to think that they were plotting or something. Idiot Gryffindors. They spent three evenings out of four together and some of these were dedicated to the research, but more and more they found themselves just being together for the enjoyment of each other's company.  
  
Draco hadn't realized that someone could have such a big family and even live with them and still feel alone the way that Weasley did. He didn't have fond memories of home, certainly, but he had thought that it would be different with the weasels. And maybe it was, just not with his weasel.  
  
Draco was in the infirmary, shelving vials of dreamless sleep, when Weasley came in.  
  
"Madame Pomfrey, may I borrow your assistant for a little while? I assure you that it is important and I promise you that you'll have him back as soon as possible," Weasley said, finding the breath for his needlessly long speech even though he was puffing like he'd been being chased by a bludger.  
  
The good matron, of course, wasn't sad to see Draco go. "All right, take him. Just bring him back when you're done because I've boxes that need sorting," she said without looking up from her work on a sleeping patient.  
  
Draco followed Weasley into the hall, waiting for an explanation. He didn't get one. Weasley led him up a flight of stairs, and then another, and then down a hallway to a door that didn't have a knob.  
  
"Alohomora," he said, and pushed the door open, ushering Draco into the room. It was a bit larger than his, but still smaller than his room at the manor, and had an obviously nicer bed in it than the one he was using now. Though, he thought, that was likely because of studious application of charms rather than having been given a quality bed. He sat down in an over- stuffed chair that reminded him of his favorite chair in the library. Though certainly the one in the library wasn't orange and didn't have quaffles flying all over it.  
  
"Well?" he asked, having leaned back and crossed his legs to indicate how very at home he was in the ugly chair.  
  
"I think I've found it, Draco, and I think I know what's going on." Weasley was fidgeting nervously where he stood by the fireplace. Draco was so surprised that he didn't even object the use of his first name. Which he was almost certain that he would have done, if circumstances were different.  
  
"You what?"  
  
"I found reference to the Sacred Eyes potion. It's dark, really dark. The potion is given to a victim and causes him to see visions. Which doesn't seem too horribly horrible, except, of course, that the victim dies because they are so caught up in their visions that their body just begins to shut down."  
  
Draco thought about this for a minute and then said, "It doesn't sound particularly helpful, does it? Because it seems to me that a seer who is too caught up in it to live will be too caught up to be of much use to anyone."  
  
"Well, the thing of it is that I don't think that the Sacred Eyes is supposed to be like a seer-in-a-bottle for the benefit of the potion-giver. I think that the visions are just part of the torture. The pictures in the book.... It wasn't like they were seeing flowers and puppies, you know."  
  
"What is it with you and puppies, anyway? Show me the book. And this doesn't explain what you meant when you said that you knew what was going on." Draco got up from the chair and went over to where Weasley was pulling a book from a shelf over the bed.  
  
"Here it is."  
  
The book was quite thick and Draco put it down on the bed to read it. He looked at the title.  
  
"Miserable Things, about which Nobody Ought to Have Written. I love truth in advertising, don't you, Weasley?" Draco let him open the book to the right spot and began to read. "Blah, blah, forbidden, blah, blah, excruciating pain, blah, blah, torment, blah. You're right; this is unpleasant. I wonder why Granger is so keen on finding out about this. Heaven knows I'd rather that I hadn't." He continued to skim the description of the potion.  
  
"Well, I found out something. Purely by accident, of course. I was just walking and I heard her talking with Ms. Vance. I certainly didn't mean to listen," Weasley said, obviously expecting chastisement from Draco for being an eavesdropper. Which he wasn't going to get, even if Draco hadn't been impatient to find out what he'd heard.  
  
"Well? Get on with it. Give me the goods."  
  
"Ms. Vance, she ... uh, there's a spy, one of ours. Well, more than one actually, but this one says that You-Know-Who is having him...or her, uh, that is to say, they're being made to brew this and they think that he, You- Know-Who, is going to have one of his spies sneak it into the ministry. Hermione says that they have these things that muggles can take and it makes them hallucinate and they like that for some reason, but they're illegal because they can hurt their bodies, not like this does, though, much milder." Weasley clearly was reluctant to talk about the spy with any specificity. "But the thing is: now we haven't heard from him in almost a month. Or her. Uh, the spy."  
  
"Do you mean Professor Snape? Because I already knew about him. You don't need to worry that I'll run off and tell the Dark Lord about it." Draco looked at the book some more to avoid looking at Weasley because he wasn't entirely sure that his vexation would shoot out of his eyes like invisible 'Avada Kedavra's and leave the wretched weasel dead in a lumpy puddle on the floor.  
  
"Sorry. I didn't mean-"  
  
"Yeah. So, what am I supposed to do with this? And why are you telling me instead of Granger?" Draco looked up and Weasley looked away. Which, Draco thought, was progress. The news about Snape had been a blow, though. A member of the Order who didn't bow to Potter was a treasure to be protected at any cost.  
  
"No, really. I didn't mean to insinuate anything," Weasley said, apparently finding much of interest to examine in the pattern of the duvet. "I wanted to tell you because I thought that you could help. You said before, that when you left.... You said that they talked about a spy in the ministry. Please? I mean, I know that Ms. Vance didn't want to listen to you, but I do. You know I do. And I think that you know things that can help us." Weasley looked hopeful and pitiful and Draco hated it.  
  
"All right."  
  
Weasley never did tell Draco why he didn't want to talk to Granger about it, but he was able to see the reason for himself without straining his brain overmuch. Heaven knew that he wanted as little to do with her as possible. Weasley wouldn't want to have his pet project, the one non-boring thing that he could work on, to be snatched away again, as Granger would assuredly do once any sort of headway had been made. After all, it wouldn't do to trust him with important things, secrets that could make or break a mission.  
  
Later that evening they met in Weasley's room again, their usual spot in the library having been judged to public for the conversation. Weasley asked him enough questions, and on the right points, that Draco knew he had been listening to a lot of the plotting that the others had thought they were keeping secret. A man after his own heart.  
  
Draco knew how it was to be actively distrusted by his own family. Father and Mother had never kept him privy to what was going on. Which turned out to be a good idea, since he wasn't to be trusted after all. Luckily he had good ears and a good head on his shoulders. Not that the fools here paid him any mind when he said things. The still seemed to think that he was a plant.  
  
"So if you could only remember the man's name, we could present the entire plan to the Headmaster. Er, that is to say, when he gets back." Weasley seemed to be convinced that the spy in the Office of Centaur Relations was bound to be the one chosen to smuggle the hallucinogenic potion into the ministry. He'd worked out an entire plan to catch him at his work if the spy planned to use the potion at the Minister's anniversary dinner, utilizing his father's position and several of the aurors who belonged to the Order. Draco thought it was very endearing that he actually expected anyone to listen to it.  
  
"But I can't." Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes. "And, more importantly, you're wrong anyway. "  
  
"I'm not! It all makes sense!"  
  
"It is perfectly possible to make sense without being right. A bit like Potter. Except without the making sense bit, of course," Draco said. Weasley looked as though he was prepared to sulk until Draco praised his little plan, so he complied. Purely to avoid the annoyance of a sulking weasel, of course. "The bit about having Shacklebolt carry the spy bodily from the room was a stroke of genius, though."  
  
"It wasn't," sulked Weasley, "You're trying to pacify me like a child."  
  
"True," admitted Draco.  
  
Further discussions yielded no truly good ideas, so two days later Weasley was forced to go to Granger after all. Draco couldn't blame him for not wanting to share the new-found information. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be hanging around for years, waiting to be accepted. Though, he suspected that he'd learn.  
  
Granger was appropriately enthusiastic about the information, not having expected that the library would actually have a book covering the subject. She didn't release them from their research duty, however.  
  
"We need to know everything that there is to know. So, Percy, I want you to try to find something on the general nature of second-sight and you, Malfoy, are to gather all the information you can on potions to aid visions. You weren't bad at potions in school." Hermione ran off with the book to show someone, presumably Vance or maybe Moody.  
  
"That," said Draco, "is, by far, the closest to a compliment that I've received since I got here."  
  
"What? You're having me on. The Headmaster was going on about your hexing ability the moment you arrived. I was there with you," Weasley argued.  
  
"Well, yes. But that was placating. That was different."  
  
"Fine. You have pretty hair, you-" Weasley stopped talking, and possibly breathing, when he realized what had just come out of his mouth. His face did that unattractively pink thing again and he looked rather like he was fighting the urge to run and hide.  
  
"Oh?" Draco taunted, "Do you like it better up or down?"  
  
"Shut. Up."  
  
"I've been thinking of having it coloured, do you think I could carry off a strawberry-blond?"  
  
"I'm never speaking to you again. Ever."  
  
"It's all right. Many a more manly man than you has fallen victim to the charms of the Malfoy hair." Draco picked up a few strands of his hair, which had gotten a good deal longer than he liked during his magical-lock, and waved them at his friend.  
  
"Huh. Your father has fallen victim to it. Someone should tell him that black bows are out. Only white is in for death eating this season." Draco looked at Weasley and began to laugh.  
  
"You know, someone really ought to tell him that. I'd kill to see the look on his face. He has this one that he makes whenever he feels that the Malfoy honor is being impugned. Looks like an affronted cat." Draco smiled, remembering.  
  
The turning point in their relationship, where Draco finally acknowledged that Weasley was a friend rather than merely a fellow prisoner, was the night that Draco came across a potion, two drops of which would turn a glass of water into sweet vermouth. He was so vocal in his lamentations that he didn't have any way of accessing the needed ingredients that Weasley showed him a spell that he'd learned from his brother George.  
  
At least, Draco assumed that was the turning point. It was hard to tell because the next thing that he knew it was the next morning and he'd had no memories of anything beyond a vague feeling of invincibility and perhaps the sharing of a fantasy involving Terence Higgs. Which Weasley may or may not have admitted to having as well. Again, it was hard to tell.  
  
He had, however, woken in his own pitiful bed in his own pitiful room, so that was a good sign. Breakfast was a silent affair where he kept his head down just in case Weasley should happen to be trying to give him a knowing look. Later, after an ever-so-slightly awkward session of reading in the library, Weasley confronted him.  
  
"About last night-" he began, but Draco cut him off.  
  
"Don't tell me. I don't want to know. It won't happen again and I'm sorry for anything that might or might not have occurred."  
  
"Er, what are you talking about? Before you got so beautifully sloshed, you said something that made me think."  
  
"Was it about Higgs?"  
  
"Huh? No. You are completely off your head, do you know that? What are 'higs' anyway?"  
  
"Oh? That isn't important. So, tell me what it was that made you think." Draco thanked the heavens that Weasley didn't recognize an opportunity for blackmail when he saw it.  
  
"You were going on and on again about how even if something makes sense it might not be true. Expounding on the theme, if you will, from when I was trying to get you to see the brilliance of my plans for catching the spy."  
  
"Really? Right-o, then. What did you think of?"  
  
"You made me think of something about when Emmaline Vance was talking to Hermione. What if I misunderstood? I mean, my interpretation makes perfect sense, but, as you said, that doesn't make it true. They were speaking in very general terms. It might not have been Professor Snape that they meant. Though the potions-brewing seems to point to him very strongly. It might not have been You-Know-Who, either."  
  
"Wait just a minute here, you're telling me that they didn't name any names and you just extrapolated the whole scenario?" Draco looked at Weasley vexedly.  
  
"Well, pretty much, yes."  
  
"Hmph. Back to the drawing board for us, then."  
  
The next day Vance requested Draco's presence in a conference room. He knew better than to think that this was a good thing. Dumbledore still hadn't returned and until that day came (if it came) he wasn't going to see a change in his stature.  
  
Vance was an Amazon of a woman, significantly taller than Draco, if not as tall as Weasley. She had long black hair which was tied up with a green scarf. Slytherin green, in fact, not that you could tell that they were house-mates by the way she treated him.  
  
She locked the door after him and offered him a drink.  
  
"Thank you," Draco said, though he didn't really want one. Amiability, however, was the order of the day, especially with this wretched woman.  
  
"I asked you here," she said, gesturing him towards a chair and then sitting down herself, "so that we might discuss your place here." She had the quiet voice of a healer and Draco wouldn't have believed if he hadn't been there the way she had shrieked at him the day of his arrival.  
  
She began talking about the history of the Order of the Phoenix. It was completely unlike the history with which he had been presented as an initiate Death Eater, but that was no surprise.  
  
He smiled and nodded in all of the right places, unsure of where this was all going. His agreeability seemed to displease Vance.  
  
The stately woman rose from her chair to tower over him. "Do you know of a man named Sturgis Podmore?" Draco looked at her, eyebrow raised.  
  
"No. Should I have done?" he asked, doing his manful best to ignore the way she was looking down her nose at him.  
  
"Of course you wouldn't remember him. You have been here for scant months. Your little boyfriend probably hasn't either. You should have heard, though. The name of Sturgis Podmore should be as known as that of Harry Potter." She had gotten an odd glassy look the moment she'd begun to talk about this Podmore person and Draco decided that he probably shouldn't say that he'd rather that the name of Potter was as forgotten as that of Podmore.  
  
"It was August 31, 1995," she continued, untying the scarf from around her head to let her hair fall down her back, "That his heroism reached its reward. He had been a member of the order since the first rising of the Dark Lord, giving up a normal life to do for his country what so many others were afraid to do. He risked life and limb; he risked his family's reputation and his own career. He was a hero to me, the one who brought me to the order." Draco began to get uncomfortable at the name of his former master. It had been a long time since he'd heard the words 'Dark Lord.'  
  
"He was chosen to be one of the party who rescued Potter from his muggle captors the year that the Dark Lord's return was finally acknowledged. He pled for me to share that honor as well. He loved me, I know. I was so infatuated, even after almost twenty years of knowing him. But then," and here her face clouded and she made with her hands as if to wring the life from the scarf in her hands, "then came that horrible day. Six months, that was all it was to be. And the dementors weren't even there anymore. It should have been safe. He was sentenced to six months for breaking and entering at the ministry after Dumbledore had him there, watching the door to the department of mysteries. Isn't that funny?"  
  
Draco had begun to get up, but had fallen back into his chair again. His mind had become fuzzy. The drink? He couldn't believe how stupid he'd been to drink something from someone who had been so hostile to him from the start.  
  
"He died there. He died. And now he is all but forgotten. And you, you've come in here, a traitor and a turn-coat, expecting asylum because you've changed your mind and want to be a hero, too. That, I'm afraid, isn't going to happen. You see, I decided that I was going to do everything in my power to get Sturgis back. Necromancy, however, is forbidden, a dark magic. Well, that simply means that I had to go to a dark magician. The Dark Lord will reward my help to him with the return of my love. And you," she said, taking hold of his chin in her long fingers, "will be the icing on the cake. He's made noises about how much he wants you back. I can hardly believe that you would come here rather than assume your place in his army. Or was it a place in his chambers that he assigned you? Macnair speaks eloquently on the subject of your pretty hide."  
  
"What about "the sacred eyes?" Draco knew he should be saving his strength for something else, like breathing, but he couldn't understand why any of this was happening.  
  
"Don't be absurd. That was just a red herring to get Hermione's attention elsewhere. She was to be my partner for this quarter, but I needed to be alone to do what I needed to do. So sorry to have wasted all your time with that little project of mine, but I don't think you mind. All that glorious time alone with Percy, eh? He's made no secret of the fact that he's wanted you in his bed from the first. Following you about like a dog. Ah, isn't young love a beautiful thing?" she asked mockingly.  
  
"Now," she said, wrapping her scarf around his neck as he tried in vain to jerk away, "this portkey will activate in a few minutes and guess where you'll be." Draco's eyes began to close; it was just too difficult to keep them open, but he had to try. He had to warn Weasley somehow.  
  
"That's right," she cooed, though he hadn't said anything, "Right into the middle of a revel. They'll all be so glad to see you. The Dark Lord, your Father, Macnair... I understand that even Vincent Crabbe wants a piece of you for killing his friend Goyle. Well, perhaps I did that, but you were such a convenient scapegoat that I couldn't resist telling him that it was you. I wish I could come too, but I'll need to stay and tell Moody how you overpowered me and escaped." Her voice was growing fainter and Draco couldn't even find the energy to panic anymore. Then a flash of light and his world went black.  
  
He came to, which was disappointing because it meant that the Death Eaters had decided to wait for their fun until he was conscious. But the surface under him didn't feel like the ground and he didn't feel bound.  
  
"Hello, there, dear boy." The voice of the Headmaster was shockingly loud in his ears and he cowered back into the bed clothes.  
  
"Don't worry. The potion that Emmaline gave you will wear off shortly," Dumbledore said in a softer tone. Draco tried to lift his head, but the pain was too much and he gave up.  
  
"You've of course realized that she was apprehended before the portkey activated. I've already congratulated young Percy on that count. It was a very lucky thing that he was walking by when he was. He says that it took him some time to get that door open after he heard what she was saying. A suspicious man would think he must have been listening at doors." The Headmaster smiled jovially at him. "Well, poor Hermione is absolutely crushed to have been taken in by that woman, but so were we all. And poor Alistair, he hasn't slept a wink. 'Constant vigilance,' you know. He's horrified at the amount of information to which she had access."  
  
Madame Pomfrey came bustled over to give Draco a thorough inspection. He was surprised to see how obviously worried she had been. He was even more surprised when she revealed that he'd been sleeping for almost thirty-six hours. "But you're awake, so the danger's past. There should only be a few hours of disorientation before you're good as new and I can put you to work on making all the beds," she said, brushing his cheek with her fingers. She warned Dumbledore that he was not to become overly excited and then bustled away to get a potion for his throbbing head.  
  
"I've been hearing nice reports about you all around, Draco. Mrs. Weasley says that you've been a great help in the kitchens and Poppy has enjoyed your work here. Miss Granger says that you saved her a lot of energy by researching in books that she would have needed to charm first. I'm quite pleased that you've made yourself so useful." The Headmaster was obviously playing with Draco's head and as soon as possible he was going to remind the man exactly how good his hexes really were.  
  
"Guh," Draco tried to speak, but his vocal chords seems to have left for parts unknown.  
  
"There, there, don't try to talk just yet. Percy has been very worried about you. I sent him to bed because he was tripping over himself and cluttering up the infirmary. I expect that you'll be well enough to come to the meeting tonight, but I ought to tell you now what I'm going to say. I've been gone so much longer than I anticipated. I've been with Professor Snape, collecting information about the possibility of the Vampires joining our side and leaving Voldemort." Draco winced at the name. He hated the way that Potter always spewed it like it was nothing and he found that he had the same discomfort with Dumbledore.  
  
"I told Emmaline instead of Alistair and it would appear that she declined to pass the information on, believing that my disappearance would be partially attributed to you, making her story of your defection more credible. Though I've told Alistair a hundred times not to jump to conclusions. Just because something makes sense, that does not make it true." Draco blinked at this, but, of course, was forced to refrain from commenting.  
  
"I've been told that your time here has been difficult. I'm sorry. I had no idea when I went to see Severus that first night you were here that we would have to leave immediately." Dumbledore sat silently for a moment. "Would you like me to fetch Percy? One blink for 'yes,' two for 'no.'"  
  
"Urg," gurgled Draco irritably. He wasn't a damn vegetable.  
  
"I'll take that as a yes," the Headmaster said, rising and patting his knee. Before he left the infirmary he turned and said, "Percy fought Emmaline single-handedly, a much older and stronger person than he. He's quite the hero of the hour. You should congratulate him."  
  
Madam Pomfrey returned with something for his head and then he was alone. Draco tried to get all of it clear in his head, but he was still too fuzzy. His weasel, though, had apparently saved the day. He'd have to be thanked. Draco wondered whether Vance was completely off her nut or if Weasley really did want him. That would be nice. He fell asleep again.  
  
A gentle shake of his shoulder woke him again.  
  
"Hello there, Draco." Weasley was bent over him and he was smiling.  
  
"Hey," Draco croaked. He tried to sit up and, with a little help from Weasley, managed it. Weasley sat down in the chair that the Headmaster had held, but he scooted it closer to the bed.  
  
"How are you doing?" he asked.  
  
"Well enough," replied Draco, "You saved me. From a fate worse than death, even. Why were you there?"  
  
Weasley's face went that obnoxious shade of pink that Draco was beginning to like and he said, "You, well... You said that Ms. Vance hated you and yelled at you. I thought that I'd listen and fake an infirmary emergency if it sounded like she was being mean to you again."  
  
"That," said Draco, "was very sweet of you." Weasley started at the use of the word 'sweet' and then blushed some more.  
  
"Er," he said, "Professor Dumbledore told me that you're going to get your magic back as soon as you're out of here. He also said that I ought to take you on a tour of the grounds, as well. Would you like to?" He had that bizarre hopeful-little-boy face on again, but this time Draco felt no need at all to keep from encouraging him.  
  
"Sure. It's a date."  
  
"Oh." Weasley's face was now redder than his hair. "You, er, don't mind then?"  
  
"Not at all." Draco smiled wickedly. "We could bring a picnic and make out behind a tree or something."  
  
"Oh."  
  
He might be a weasel, and have all of the disturbing Gryffindor faults to which weasels were prone, but he was, after all, his Weasel. And things began to look up. 


End file.
